=======================================================================
Re: Friday, January 16, 2009
President's Message
=======================================================================
January 2009
President's Message
Dear Investor
Last year, I had the pleasure of completing an interview with the Wall
Street Transcript (WST). The following message provides a good
overview of First Point Minerals for the coming year using the format
of the WST interview.
Peter Bradshaw
President
WST: What is First Point Minerals?
Dr. Bradshaw: First Point Minerals is a hard-rock minerals exploration
company formed almost 12 years ago by principals with a very good track
record of mine finding. The Company is focused on bulk tonnage
"porphyry style" nickel-iron alloy deposits plus gold and silver
exploration, with an emphasis on early stage properties. Our efforts
are directed at bringing them to a more advanced stage, indicating
mineral reserves or resources and demonstrating commercial viability.
Having done so, we would then farm those properties out to much bigger
mining companies possessing the technical and financial resources
required to place the properties into commercial production. The
activities that occur during the exploration phase are where we
concentrate our efforts, as it is during this phase that shareholders
can get the greatest share price appreciation.
WST: Give us an idea of the range of First Point's projects.
Dr. Bradshaw: We are focused in the Americas: North, Central and South
America with offices in Vancouver, Mexico, Honduras and Peru. Our most
advanced project is the Decar nickel property in British Columbia,
Canada where we are working on a nickel deposit amenable to bulk
tonnage open pit mining. In this type of deposit the nickel is in the
form of a nickel-iron alloy, quite different from nickel sulphides and
nickel laterites, the two types of nickel deposits commonly mined
today. With the first and historically most important type of nickel
deposit, as at Sudbury, Ontario, the nickel is contained in sulphide
minerals: that is the nickel is bound with sulphur which requires
smelting to recover the nickel. In the Decar nickel-iron alloy deposit
there is negligible sulphur so not only does the nickel product not
need to go to a smelter but there is no acid mine drainage at the
minesite, making this style of mineralization very environmentally
benign. The second commercially important type of nickel deposit is
lateritic ore found in the Tropics. In this case the nickel is bound
with silica and it takes a great deal of energy to recover the nickel.
In contrast, in the nickel-iron alloy deposits, the alloy is both
highly magnetic and quite heavy so conventional, commercially-proven
magnetic and gravity separation techniques are being tested to see
which is the most economic. First Point is also investigating a method
for leaching the nickel directly from the ore.
First Point is also exploring precious metal deposits in Mexico and
Central America. The targets are both high-grade epithermal vein-style
deposits and large intrusive hosted deposits. The styles of the
mineralization of these types of deposits are well understood and such
deposits are mined in a number of locations around the world. We
believe that our targets have excellent exploration potential.
WST: What has your progress been over the past year? What have you
achieved?
Dr. Bradshaw: We have had a significant breakthrough in 2008 as a
result of identifying and understanding the disseminated nickel-iron
alloy targets. This recent work and the knowledge gained over the last
several years for this particular form of nickel mineralization has
allowed us to define a large area of disseminated nickel-iron alloy on
our Decar property in British Columbia. As I have already stated the
characteristics of this nickel-iron alloy makes it very suitable for
conventional magnetic and gravity separation. We have also made
progress in the last 12 months on developing a potential method to
recover the nickel using a heap leaching procedure. While heap
leaching ores to recover gold has been a matter of routine for over 25
years, and heap leaching processes are being developed for recovery of
copper and zinc, First Point is the leader in developing this
technology where nickel is in the form of a nickel-iron alloy. We are
working with the Department of Materials Engineering at the University
of British Columbia on this process. Doctors David Dixon and Adam
Fischmann of that Department are on First Point's Advisory Committee.
On the Corralitos property in Mexico that we optioned from TeckCominco
in 2007 we have finished several phases of surface work and have
identified drill targets in some areas while other areas will benefit
from another round of surface work prior to drilling. Since Corralitos
is a lower priority property than our nickel properties at this time,
drilling on the Corralitos property will probably not take place until
economic conditions improve.
Our more advanced properties in Honduras were put on the back burner
several years ago when the Honduran Government announced its intention
to introduce a new mining law. The current draft of the proposed law
is acceptable to the mining industry, environmental groups and other
interested parties, but the Government has not presented the draft
legislation to the Honduran Congress for ratification. Pending passage
of the legislation we will not risk further shareholder funds on the
Honduran properties.
WST: Who are the key members of the top-level management team,
obviously including yourself?
Dr. Bradshaw: I am a mineral exploration geologist and had been my
whole working life. I have had the very good fortune to be directly
involved with four discoveries around the world that went into
production, one mine in Australia, two mines in Papua New Guinea, and a
mine in Guyana in South America. Dr. Ron Britten is our Vice President
of Exploration. He is also a mineral exploration geologist and has
been involved in two significant discoveries, one here in British
Columbia and another in Papua New Guinea. In addition we have a very
experienced Board of Directors and also a very talented Advisory
Committee. Details of both can be found on our web site at
www.firstpointminerals.com.
WST: Over the coming year, what are some of the milestones that
investors should anticipate?
Dr. Bradshaw: On the nickel front, we have the large Decar property
here in British Columbia where work has indicated potential for a
"porphyry" or bulk tonnage open pit nickel-iron alloy deposit. Mining
costs for this style of nickel deposit will be very similar to those
incurred at operations in British Columbia that mine porphyry copper
deposits. Our immediate focus will be on that property. Late last
fall we collected several large samples at Decar to expand our
metallurgical work over the winter in order to develop the most
feasible method for extracting the nickel by one or more of magnetic
separation, gravity separation and leaching. This metallurgical work
will greatly assist in defining the processing costs. During the
summer 2009 field season we intend to expand our fieldwork, at Decar in
particular, either on our own or with a partner, to define the best
targets for a drill program. We also plan to complete further work on
our nickel property in the USA. In addition, on the Corralitos
property in Mexico we are ready to start a drill program in the core
area and extend our surface work beyond this area when funding is more
readily available.
WST: What is First Point's historical shareholders base and has that
undergone any recent changes?
Dr. Bradshaw: Our shareholder base has not gone through any recent
transitions. Management and directors hold 10% of the issued shares.
All our fund-raising for the last six to seven years has been by
private placements, so it's all been with accredited investors. Our
initial shareholder base when First Point was incorporated was a group
of about 15 private investors here in Vancouver. A number of them were
from Placer Dome, the company I worked with for a number of years
before leaving to accept a senior executive position in the junior
company exploration field. Our current shareholder base includes a
fund in the UK and a couple of funds here in Canada. We have also
worked quite hard to keep our retail investor base up, in order to
achieve good liquidity in the shares.
WST: Is the First Point Minerals story understood? In your discussions
with the investment community and investors, are there any recurring
questions or misperceptions?
Dr. Bradshaw: I would say the First Point story is only partially
understood. Our nickel program actually started 11 years ago, but we
kept a very low profile while we confirmed our facts, acquired and
examined a number of properties, dropped some properties and advanced
others. It is only very recently that we have been talking about our
nickel targets after acquiring the properties we want and having
achieved a very significant break through last summer. Because the
story is new and the style of target is different from the well know
styles of nickel deposits, it will undoubtedly take some time before
investors recognize the full potential. We are world leaders in this
area and knowledge about our properties will change this year. We
also continue work on our gold/silver properties, albeit at a slower
pace right now because of funding constraints.
Historically we have examined a large number of properties and acquired
and done work on quite a number. However we certainly don't hesitate
to drop properties which we feel are very unlikely to produce an
economic ore body within a reasonable length of time. I think this
process is where our team is particularly good, efficiently finding
promising prospects, examining them in a cost effective manner,
discarding those that don't make the grade and adding shareholder value
by advancing those that do. After a number of years examining very
many possibilities, testing and dropping most of them, I feel very
positive about our current properties. This "examination" period has
been very hard on our share price but we are breaking out of that shell
and expect to have considerable activity going forward. I think that
is why a lot of people have stuck with us and others will find First
Point to be an attractive investment opportunity.
WST: What are the key summary points? What today would compel
investors to include First Point Minerals as part of their current
portfolio and part of their longer-term investment strategy?
Dr. Bradshaw: In both of those categories, our exploration and
metallurgical work on nickel-iron alloys is very compelling. We
actually started this work 11 years ago as I said when this style of
mineralization was not known as a deposit type. At that time nickel
was about $3.00 a pound and our understanding of field techniques to
outline targets was not nearly as good. Over time we have refined our
methods considerably and are definitely world leaders in this area. In
our recent field work we have identified wide spread very fine-grained
nickel-iron alloy - a type of material that might be extracted using a
heap leach method. At the moment we are conducting leaching tests at a
laboratory scale. We have also identified targets consisting of much
coarser grained alloy which could be processed using either gravity or
magnetic separation methods, offering several other options for
extraction of nickel, making a "porphyry" style nickel deposit look
very attractive. This is an emerging story that could fundamentally
change nickel mining and production and we believe that it will add
considerable value to our share price in the coming months, as
investors begin to understand the potential presented by this
development.
Our gold-silver Corralitos property in Mexico is promising. When
financing conditions become more favourable, we should be able to drill
test a "Carlin type" gold target and gold-silver vein targets on the
Corralitos property. In addition we have very promising results from
our two properties in Honduras which we will move forward when the new
mining law is passed.
WST: Do you have some concluding comments?
Dr. Bradshaw: We are a very experienced and determined exploration
team. Over their professional careers, members of our team have had
very significant success in the discovery and advancement of properties
which have gone into production. Dr. Ron Britten, VP of Exploration
and I have been directly involved in a total of six significant
deposits that have gone into commercial production or are in
feasibility. We know what they look like. We know how to look for
them. We know how to find them. We believe that First Point provides
a very good bet for investors.
=======================================================================
Copyright (c) 2009 FIRST POINT MINERALS CORP. (FPX) All rights
reserved. For more information visit our website at
http://www.firstpointminerals.com/ or send
mailto:info@firstpointminerals.com
=======================================================================
.
<
|
VanEck Vectors Global Alternative Energy ETF
|
|
EXPLORATEUR |
CODE : FPX.T |
ISIN : CA3359371083 |
CUSIP : 335937108 |
| |
ProfilIndicateurs de MarchéVALEUR : Projets & res.Communiqués de PresseRapport annuelRISQUE : Profile actifsContactez la cie |
First Point Min. est une société d’exploration minière d'or et d'argent basée au Canada. First Point Min. détient divers projets d'exploration au Honduras. Ses principaux projets en exploration sont CORRALITOS au Mexique, DECAR et JOE au Canada et TULE et CAMPORO au Honduras. |